Thirty years ago, a group of mothers who had lost children to drunk drivers organized a group called MADD. They had a legitimate beef. There were too many drunks on the road.

To Americans at the time, drinking and driving was a national pastime. We would routinely take risks that are unheard of today. More than one state would actually allow you to have an alcoholic drink in your hand while  you were behind the wheel. (The joke was that in Texas, it was mandatory.)

The MADD lobbying and national awareness effort was quite successful, and within a few years, drunk-driving accidents had been reduced. Terms like “designated driver” started to sweep the national zeitgeist. The comedy boom of the eighties (where I cut my chops) was fueled in part by the crackdown, since comedy made it possible to be entertained in a bar, without becoming profusely incoherent.

But then something strange happened. The Mothers didn’t stop being mad. Rather than celebrate their happy victory, they cracked down even harder. They promoted seat belt laws and roadblocks. In 2000 they lobbied to get the legal blood alcohol down to 0.08% ; a level that most competent drinkers could handle safely. Comedian Doug Stanhope once joked that he was a better driver at 0.08% than his grandmother was completely sober.

Meanwhile the percentage of drivers getting arrested kept increasing, to the point where the stigma of a DUI conviction was no longer negative. At cocktail parties, people will sometimes play a strange version of Liars Poker, where they compare each other’s court recorded BAC, to see who has the highest.

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Jeebus H. Christ, it didn’t take long for the scope of ObamaCare to swell up like the ankles of a carnival fat lady after a day at work! ObamaCare isn’t even law yet, but Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) explains it all for us plainer than Sr. Mary Ignatius ever dared.

Despite the crappy housing market, the health care reform bill currently being debated in the Senate is only a “starter home,” you see. We’ve got to leverage the country into an unaffordable McMansion ASAP. Talking to the lefty Iowa Independent, the Daniel Ortega- and bee pollen-loving senator, gives a disturbing metaphor about the real goals of this historic (hysteric?) legislation:

“What we are buying here is a modest home, not a mansion. What we are getting here is a starter home. It’s got a good foundation: 30 million Americans are covered. It’s got a good roof: A lot of protections from abuses by insurance companies. It’s got a lot of nice stuff in there for prevention and wellness. But, we can build additions as we go along in the future. It is a starter home. Think about it in that way.”

More Harkinisms here.

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Government programs almost always end up costing much more than they were supposed to. They also usually end up doing more than they were supposed to. Would ObamaCare be any different?

Some say ObamaCare would lead to death panels, even euthanasia classes. But you don’t have to side with those who warn of euthanasia classes to recognize that government programs often end up doing all kinds of things that weren’t in politicians’ original plans.

Call it mission creep. Politicians pass a program, and then the scope of the program grows and changes.

It’s happened with everything from state-level health insurance plans to the Troubled Asset Relief Program. TARP’s original mission was spelled out in its name—the government would purchase troubled assets from financial institutions. However, just over a year later TARP’s mission has exploded, and billions in TARP funds have gone to bail out General Motors, Chrysler, and struggling homeowners. TARP money may even fund another stimulus.

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